This is all being recorded. Debra is used to this. She's been recorded several times this week already and she was telling you that she's not used to being a visiting celebrity and going around giving talks everywhere. Debra is a student of Akin Roshi's in Hawaii at the Diamond Sangha and a co-editor of Ka Hawaii, the Journal of Women in Zen, which we all like to read so much. And she's also a has a master's in Asian Studies from the University of Hawaii and has done a lot of Dogen translating. Or some Dogen translating. Some Dogen translating. She's also very modest. And she's going to give the talk that she gave at the conference in Boulder. And then we'll have a chance to ask questions and discuss. And I'm really glad she could come and talk to us. We had a good time talking in Boulder. a feeling that our songs have a lot in common. Thank you all.

[01:07]

It's really nice to be here. I do feel like it's home. And meeting Fran at Boulder was discovering someone that had been on our mailing list for years. And so it feels really good to be here. And I'd like to get a chance to find out everyone's names. Maybe afterwards, instead of wasting the tape, we could, after we finish, could go around and tell everyone's name because then I have a sense who's here. This talk, the subject of it, I was thinking about last November when Judith Simmer, who is the person who is really the mover behind the Women in Buddhism Symposium at Naropa, had asked two people from our sangha to come. Last year Susan Murcott came to the first annual conference, and so this year two people are going to go. I wanted to talk about lay practice, but I also wanted to talk about the Kahawai cohorts. And when I tried to put those two together, I came up with a title, which is, Our Mothers' Roadside Rostrums, The Tradition and Challenge of Lay Practice.

[02:15]

I'm not sure that the paper touches those two things and it was really a struggle to write it. This is the last time that I will ever give it. I gave it at Naropa. I gave it first at Zazankai in the Diamond Sangha, then I gave it in Naropa, and last night I gave it at San Francisco. This is it. So I'll start. I want to say that it's formed, the talk is formed around a koan and so I'll read that koan first and then come back to it throughout the talk. So this is how it begins. Once a monk went to call on Mihu on the way he met a woman living in a hut. The monk asked, do you have any disciples? She said, yes. The monk asked, where are they? She said, the mountains, rivers, and earth, the plants and trees are all my disciples. The monk asked, are you a nun? She said, what do you see me as?

[03:18]

The monk said, a lay person. She said, you can't be a monk. The monk said, you shouldn't mix up Buddhism. She said, I'm not mixing up Buddhism. The monk said, aren't you mixing up Buddhism this way? The woman in a hut said, you're a man. I'm a woman. Where has there ever been any mix up? This story about the woman in a hut can be used as a koan. Koans originated in China as Zen Buddhist teachers used dialogues and sayings to provide themes for meditation and to test their students' insight. Because one teacher usually had very many disciples, the dialogue took place in the Dharma hall, in public, with all the students present. In fact, the word koan means public case in its etymology. Well, I just should say that I wrote this talk for people of mixed backgrounds and I'm going to read it as is because I don't know people's background here, but if it sounds too elementary, I apologize.

[04:22]

One way to understand what a koan is might be to liken it to a play. A good play is a presentation rather than an explanation of one person's insight into reality. When we watch a play, we are challenged to enlarge our vision of the world by seeing into what is happening on the stage and recognizing its relevance for our own lives. So we use the stories and the dialogues that make up the Zen tradition in much the same way. Koans present the fundamental reality of the way things are and challenge us to make our realization of them clear in our meditation practice and to integrate them into our everyday lives. The story of the woman in a hut doesn't appear in any of the compilations of koans which are regularly used in streams of Zen which use koan study. It's part of a series of newly available material which was translated by Thomas Cleary, who I think most of you have heard of. Two years ago, Robert Aiken wrote to Thomas Cleary asking for any material that he might have found on women, and he did that at the request of some women in the Diamond Sangha.

[05:29]

So the calling of the woman in a hut is our public case today. My purpose in entitling this paper, Our Mother's Roadside Rostrums, the Tradition and Challenge of Lay Practice, was to focus on both the past, small tradition that we found of strong women figures in Zen, and in the future, and how we as women and men today face the challenge of shaping a responsive and responsible Buddhism in the West. So the koan is kind of a fulcrum balancing these two themes and will be the touchstone for what I want to say today. So let's go back to the beginning and go through it. A monk went to call on Mihu on the way he met a woman living in a hut. The monk said, do you have any disciples? She said, yes. The monk said, where are they? She said, the mountains, rivers, and earth, the plants and trees are all my disciples. This koan, like many others that we find in the Zen tradition, begins with a monk on pilgrimage.

[06:33]

What we know about the golden age of Zen in Tang China, from the late 8th to the early 10th centuries, suggests that Zen was characterized by large monasteries, each centered around a single teacher. But students were very often encouraged, as you know, to go and make pilgrimages to other teachers, asking questions or testing their own understanding. So in an age when great teachers had hundreds of disciples and sometimes as many as 80 successors, it's no wonder the first question our monk asked the woman in a hut is whether or not she has any disciples. Unfortunately, though, we don't really know very much about women's participation in Tang period Buddhism. Though there is historical evidence that women became nuns, The main body of Zen literature reflects the dominance of the male monastic model. The succession of teachers is traced through this male line and the Koan tradition is made up overwhelmingly of the sayings and dialogues of monks and male teachers. We only get occasional glimpses of women at all in the four traditional books of Koans which we use in the Diamond Sangha.

[07:41]

Now I can think of two or three in which a nun might appear and several, only several more in which a lay woman appears. So one of the fascinating things that we found when we got this material from Thomas Cleary is that many of the women in the stories were accomplished and realized laywomen. Whatever the actual participation of women was, it's obvious from the tradition that it was passed down through male hands, through male brushes and pens. And so what we find about the laywomen that were there is they very often were centered around a teacher that was a very famous teacher and obviously their stories became known through their interaction with a famous teacher. But in contrast to the clerical figures that people most of the Koan tradition, the women we meet in Zen history are just as likely to be laywomen. We seem to meet tea sellers most often, women who ran roadside tea or cake stalls for a living. The woman Zen adept as a tea seller prompted Akin Roshi to once call the roadside tea stall the rostrum, or the teaching stand, of our ancient mothers in the Dharma.

[08:49]

From her place at the crossroads she could challenge and question all the monks who came her way. We find other women in the Kahawai Koans working in the fields or running small shops. Inevitably, whether they were nuns or laywomen, women were outside the mainstream of monastic Zen. So, in the usual sense of the word, it's very unlikely that the woman living in a hut had any disciples. And yet, she answers the monk's question by saying, yes. You can imagine our monk looking around her small hut, very modest surroundings and saying, well, where are they? You claim to be a teacher with disciples, yet you sit here alone doing Zazen. What is your meaning? The woman in the hat answers him, the mountains, rivers, and earth, the plants and trees are all my disciples. Here they are, completely intimate. Dogen Zenji, the great teacher who founded Soto Zen in Japan, said it this way, everything, blooming flowers, wild grasses, mountains, oceans, land, rivers, is the body and spirit of original Buddha mind.

[10:00]

This original eternal mind is a chair, a bamboo, or a tree. How would you express it? This is the heart of the tradition we inherit from our ancient mothers in the Dharma. It is the core of the teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha himself. But we must experience this for ourselves. Just accepting the words of the Buddha or the woman in a hat won't do. Just accepting the words of our own teachers won't do. In the practice of Zazen, we practice becoming intimate with the task at hand, whether it be counting our breaths from one to ten, working on a koan like the koan mu, which we use in our sangha as a beginning koan, or working on a koan like the woman in a hut. Becoming intimate means forgetting everything else, giving our total attention to just this one point, just one, or just two, or mu. I remember thinking, at times when it happens in zendo,

[11:07]

where it's all men. It's just the women didn't show up that day. And it's a completely different feeling. And I got one thought, well, wouldn't it be interesting to just have a man fishing or a woman fishing? Not for any particular reason, just because of the feeling. It's different. The women's center started in San Francisco for many years, actually, probably until 65 or 66. The women's center, one side of the building, and the men's center on the other side. Oh, it was longer than that. No. Because they were still doing that when I first came. No. No, it's not. Maybe up to 67. And that was very interesting, because You know, you knew which side you belonged on.

[12:13]

And, um, I think most people know. And, um, after Zonda, we made a stand up and we were proud of each other. That was very nice, actually. And the other day, we were all proud of each other. But then, you know, people decided that they wanted to mix it up, you know, and I said, well, okay. And then everybody slept in and then everybody else. And I always felt there was some kind of order in the separation that was nice, because everybody was practicing together anyway. But there was, the distinction wasn't, It was the other side of World War I. Yeah.

[13:15]

And it just made clear, you know, you're a man, you're a man, you're a woman. And, so, I think they were trying to sort themselves out again, in some way. Akinroshi always tells the story of, um, I think it was, I don't know, one of the first, you know, Japanese teachers that he knew that came there and wanted to do it that way because Himawari Akinoroshi's teacher in Japan, they still do it that way. In fact, they don't have women leaders in the dojo. But Akinoroshi said he never could get into it because at the end when they bowed, it was almost as though everyone was going to dance with each other. But there is that, you know, when you're at Sesshin, we always, you know, the women sleep together and use one bathroom and the men use another bathroom. And there's something kind of nice about that. And this last session on Maui, they had four women leaders, and it was the first time that ever happened in my session.

[14:16]

But it's nice to have mixed. It gives you some feeling that you're practicing with other men and other women, but you're all practicing together anyway. I don't think we should do that. Yeah. But it's nice when it's mixed. I remember one of my first sessions, like my first session and my second session, there was 19 men and 2 women. And I felt like I had been transplanted to this ancient monastery. And it was really quite scary, especially for a beginning student. I'm really feeling like maybe I don't belong here. And separating those cultural things that are kind of Japanese in that way is kind of a delicate thing. The groups that are based very strongly on that Japanese tradition have hierarchy.

[15:19]

And groups that aren't, the LA group, would have an easier time doing what they want, whereas groups that are not priests would be much harder because they'd be more beholden to the tradition. And when they make a decision, it's much more, you know, it's a lot longer and much more careful. So in a sense, lay groups have more leeway, more latitude, and can experiment as a kind of advantage. That's, you know, I really feel that, and that's what I really wanted to write about, but then I figured I was going to to a place where there is monks and nuns all coming together and it's real hard to come out and say that because there's some advantages the other way, too, to have those people that are there.

[16:20]

But, you know, one of the things, and I think Fran is going to tell you more of this when she speaks, but that being women together and meeting together across traditions, you know, and being women was just kind of the way that allowed that to happen so that we met with Theravadan women and then women from different traditions and Tibetan women, Tibetan women practicing Tibetan. It's really important and I wish there was some way that we could integrate men and women and have that happen because for me that was just an incredible experience to be with people that are practicing from different traditions and seeing the differences and how it's the same. And feeling for the first time that there's something like an American Sangha even though it has all these different faces. It seems that there is more of a responsibility in that kind of, as Mel was talking about, of a sondra, free from a lot of hierarchy, much more responsibility to kind of emphasize the fundamentals of what we're really doing.

[17:23]

I thought about Fran's comment, as she mentioned, that she found that staying home with her children became a form of practice. in the work we do and the life we lead, but can be like Fran mentioned, a form of practice. And not always have it associated with making a revolution of some sort. And I miss that. I feel that that's really what I'd like to hear more about. That's more of the problem that I'm faced with. She's going to do it. Deborah's working on me. I'm going to write some articles for Kahawai. But this can be expanded to more than just the role of a housewife. Oh, yeah. As I said, I kind of miss that. And I see a song that is composed mostly of, or say, of a lay orientation. They have that responsibility. And it seems to me kind of a difficult thing, because here we're basically saying, you know, only partners can play this role.

[18:31]

But that's what I am kind of searching for. Yeah, me too. Because, you know, I work for a non-profit theater and I have a real demanding job that's completely out there, you know, public relations and fundraising, pretty far from... And I haven't got to the heart of that, and nothing I've heard has really got to the heart of that. And I really wanted, that was part of it, you know, I really wanted to write about that, and this paper came out, which isn't really what I wanted, but I found like I wasn't ready, didn't know enough to touch that yet. And I'm hoping that Fran will say something that will make it easy. I can't say anything about how to do public relations. Well, but I think it's as practice or otherwise. But I'll try. But, you know, and it was really good to have Fran at the conference because her comments on that label really were valuable for all of us there. And will be published in full in due time.

[19:33]

They're transcribing the conference. including the discussions, and they will be published probably in the fall. And there were a lot of really good discussions, which I won't be able to remember enough of to fill everybody in. But also even at the conference, although we kept kind of getting to the verge of it, you know, and there kept being things that were easier to talk about. So I think you're right, it's a real need that we have. And we've been maybe not encouraged so much to talk about that kind of thing or it's hard to find a way to do it that's appropriate and that works. You know, one thing that we've thought about in this is that I've never really been turned on by the thought of all sitting around and talking about how Zen affects our everyday life, because it seems a little bit discursive to do it in that way.

[20:34]

And yet it doesn't really seem as though, at least in our tradition, that Doxan lends itself to that because, you know, our Doxan has a certain context and it's not that. So one of the things that somebody said as an idea would be to kind of do it, just try to find a new form for that. and one of our members works for the American Friends Service Committee and has started going to Quaker meetings and his experience of Quaker meetings where it's where you sit with it and yet what comes out is kind of something some kind of life problem you know or something like that might you can work on it on a psychological level but maybe that's really not maybe enough or something I don't know but I don't know we're just really I'm just beginning to think about this I talked to Egan Roshi about it, but he hasn't worked. I mean, there's something wrong. I mean, different.

[21:36]

There's different kinds of work. I think one thing that's happened with our women's group is certainly it's been a very lively, although brief, group. And one of the things that's happened is that what would seem a really discursive quality adds up adds up finally into being some kind of common practice. Most of the meanings are descriptions of individual points of view and at first just telling life stories. But when you tell just life stories, which are just very descriptive and plain in the context of everybody's practice, another element just comes out. And we've been talking, we have general meetings that infrequently, but occasionally, are on more personal issues than business-related issues. And we've been talking about having a meeting discussing right livelihood and what that would mean.

[22:41]

And again, I think that I'm looking forward to that. And I think that when we do just people talking about the work they do and describing it, some, what they like about it or what they feel is a practice element in it, I think. Yeah, that's true. It will draw on what we need to know about each other. Yeah, we haven't done that so much. No, and there's a strong interest in it. Yeah. Roshi also, I think, has got that planned. But we've done those kind of meetings in the past, too. Like, we did a sharing meeting on abortion, and we've done one on right livelihood, and we did one on sex. I think the right livelihood one was on Maui. But that sharing circle is a good way for that, especially when you hold discussion until everyone kind of says. People speak really deeply from the heart. I don't know, I never heard a response from any man to what someone said about, what was it you said about, what was it said about the men wanting to get together and not?

[23:49]

But I'd like to hear from someone who might have some thoughts on that, from that side. Yeah, or just kind of feelings about women getting together in groups or do you feel as though the practice that you, like you said, that you know Zen in the past has been a malpractice, does that meet your needs or is there any other You know, any other agenda there? I don't know. I don't think that's a... Perhaps culturally, maybe even more deeply than that. It's not a pattern that men naturally pull into their own. It can easily be, and there's a lot of overlap. Women just tend to want to feel more comfortable and enjoy more the association of the talk and sharing and that sort of thing.

[24:57]

Maybe it's something very fundamental. Male versus female. I'm kind of guessing. That's my response. I think another side of it is that traditionally men have done things together, women have done things together. And usually they don't mix it up. I think it's rare, actually, In most cultures, men go to work together and women have their work to do. We miss that at some point. We miss that.

[25:58]

I mean, if that's what our life has been about, men and women doing things together, then maybe men do this. You know, just doing things with men. I mean, I've always had an experience in my life when I've done things exclusively with men. And I was talking about that the other day. service, just live with men. And I don't know if women have that opportunity so much, but it's one way of doing things. And sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it's good, you know, for men to go to act with men, and the younger men learn something in the middle of that. I really encourage the women in the school a lot because I think that one reason is that the younger women can learn a lot from the older women's experience.

[27:10]

And it's good to have somebody that you look up to when you're on sex and if you spend time that way. It's not even teaching, it's just association. It's real. I've always felt, though, that men have always done things together, but they haven't really shared intimate feelings together very much. This has been my impression. Whereas women tend to do that. And when you do share those feelings, that's when you become real close. And I think that's why the women's groups work, because everybody talks about their feelings and everybody feels together. I think men that do that usually have a strong feminine side or a very sensitive side, and they're drawn to women frequently, to talking with women. But that's why it seems to me all the men who I know who have gotten involved with men's groups, they don't work, they never last.

[28:12]

I think it's because they're not used to talking about feelings, they talk about things. It just doesn't bring people together. I think, though, that there are ways that men are together that usually isn't verbal. It's like maybe doing an activity, and a lot of times it's really intense. Like you see it in sports, this incredible closeness just from doing something that requires an enormous effort together. And I think that's probably something that happens in the monastery. I might never say a word about it, but, you know, or it's how we feel in a session, you know, after days of sitting and not talking to the person next to you. It's a real intimacy. And I have a lot of respect for that too. But in a women's group, one of the things that's been really interesting to me is to hear women who have not sat as long as I have talk about things that I feel like I've struggled with for years and not resolved.

[29:18]

And that these things are so common. I mean, that's just... I've sat for a long time and there weren't so many women that I felt these are my individual problems to struggle with. But they don't seem to be. They seem to be problems that many women have. And that's been a revelation and very helpful to me. I feel much less isolated. Something that's a personal issue that I've talked with a little bit was most evident in our subject is that with the emphasis on lay practice in America, we haven't really addressed how our practice affects relationships between men, marriages, or mate relationships, or whatever, whether it be a relationship between two practicing members, and that has its own set of issues, and then what about

[30:19]

those couples where one person practices and the other doesn't. And I haven't seen anything really discussed about that in an open way. And that's something that I'm really interested in. I mean, you talk about it in Right Livelihood, but about, you know, right relationships. We try to get at it a little bit by talking about the precept on sex, but even that, there's not much written on it, there's not much guidance on it, it really is a way issue. It's not just a way issue, because most of the priests are also married. But there doesn't seem to be much guidance, or it's not one of those areas of our practice that's traditionally been talked about.

[31:36]

It seems less so for us to take on. We talk about it sometimes in an ongoing way, but we don't discuss it. We're very conscious of it, pretty much. But it's still typically iceberg. Maybe I haven't figured out how to do it yet. Maybe that's a good way to get men and women together across different traditions. Although, again, that's something, you know, women get together, you know, and they complain about their husbands and, you know, or they talk about, you know, family strife and troubles. It's a, you know, it's a pattern that's already there and it's tapped. You know, men, I don't think men do that. Just like, you know, women often have trouble getting their husbands to talk about the problems that they have together. It's even harder to get husbands to talk about their problems that they have with their wives. But I think with more men doing really active parenting than... Oh yeah, I think the potential is there.

[32:39]

We're not all that stereotyped. It's part of the traditional male sex role, I think, that there's a consciousness now, I think, among men at various levels that maybe we should be talking about those things or maybe we should be talking about our feelings and learning how to articulate those sorts of things. One of the larger issues, I think, is becoming an integrated person who's in touch with those sides of his or her personality. And I think that these kind of issues for men are the male side of feminism. That if women in the various feminist endeavors have had to work to enter traditional male areas, I think these are some

[33:54]

are strong points that I think lie open from there. I hesitate really to say this, but will, because I feel so strongly about it. It seems to me we should stress what we have to give to each other more than our divisions. And it seems to me questions of suit to terminology, the role of women and men in the sangha, All of these seem to be matters that ought to be shared and discussed together. And if the differences men and women may have temperamentally, instead of segregating one another, it seems to me we need to interact and give to one another. I find it hard to understand, in particular the Buddhist community, the creation of these strong divisions. Yeah, well, I think first women have to come together, and like Connie said, realize that you're not isolated, that other women have some of the same feelings that you have, and share that among women and build up a feeling of solidarity there.

[35:08]

And I certainly think you have to then bridge that gap of communication between men and women. But first there has to be some kind of coming together separate interest groups before you can do that. I think your point is good. What I saw a lot of women when we went to this conference and in San Francisco last night was people really feeling not being able to share their issues and really feeling alone if they're disturbed about one thing. It might be it might be as small as sutra changes, it might be hierarchy, it might be sexual relations with the teacher. I mean, there was a wide range of important issues that came out, and I think that Buddhism isn't about isolation, even though we might appreciate, you know, the table's hard and, you know,

[36:17]

those are soft and we appreciate the differences but I don't think it's about isolation and so in some ways it's more comfortable to start first by talking with someone that we think might understand and then going. But I think it's important to emphasize that we try not to be divisive and to share. But a lot of people feel like men can't understand why sutra changes might be important and so first there has to be some kind of confidence and women don't often have that confidence. It may have something to do too with one's first introduction to Zen Buddhism. My own intense experience was with a priest in Kyoto who was sensitive and articulate and a feeling as well as a very intellectual person and somehow the idea I think this may be the reason why I personally feel so.

[37:19]

Well, I think that's a really good point, Catherine. I think that if you are lucky enough to have a teacher whose experience goes beyond his own life experience, whose understanding goes beyond his own life experience, and that we're very lucky in this situation. I think it's ironic, actually, that where we have women's groups cropping up, strong women's groups, where there are teachers who are the most sensitive to women. You know, I think that's very ironic. And in places where they have the most kind of male-dominated hierarchy and the least sensitivity to women and teachers who are not so in touch with their feminine side, you don't see women's groups and you see a lot of frightened women. And so you see the women from the centers where they've been kind of given more encouragement to practice and treated like there wasn't, you know, any problem with being women, trying to encourage women who are trying to practice under adverse conditions.

[38:20]

And I think that's a lot of what's happening. One thing that you brought up at the end was The idea of consensus, decision-making, and that's something I think about a lot, because I think that's a way that women do make decisions and do communicate more than men. So the idea of hierarchy, I think, is something that is more male, but it's something that women have more of. It's something I'm real sensitive to. And, you know, there's people doing really tremendous things with consensus decision-making. I mean, somebody, a woman named Truelight Green, who's active in, I guess, some kind of political action, maybe anti-nuclear.

[39:28]

things in California talked about, you know, big action with like 6,000 people that can all be organized through affinity groups and then Spokes Council. It takes a long time, but it works and it kind of combines that, you know, that sensitivity to each person's position and working together with really getting something done. Yeah, we've been working through... I've been a member of an affinity group here, so we're having that experience. And then Zen, though, you have an idea that some people are more I guess in my mind, all the students or priests are more enlightened, so it's not like you're equal. Like you're equal in this affinity group, but you're not equal when people have been practicing for 10 years, and you've been practicing for a short while. So that makes it much more complicated. You don't know when you're just off the wall, or maybe you're equal in how you feel about people. You know, you take that idea of consensus decision-making and does that work in the same community?

[40:35]

Because some people... Some Buddhas are more equal than others. ...are more advanced? That mystique, that mystique that some people are more equal than others pervaded what I heard people say at Naropa. And it's something that people really have to work with. But if you're an affinity group and somebody has just more experience or speaks from a good point of view, then you can hear that. They don't have to necessarily tell you what to do. That's how you learn. So I think if you feel strongly about consensus, then go ahead and claim it. Well, I know the men describing their experience in jail in the affinity group, there were a lot of men that have been politically active for years and years, so these men were more like the, they had a lot of advice.

[41:39]

So that, you know, certainly comes in influence there, too. Yeah, well, I think one of the articles we cover a lot about consensus and about not fall into the pitfall of the most common denominator making a decision in the group. I think that's really important. And to take people in the group who have experience and, you know, there's consensus doesn't mean everybody's point of view is as wise or is equal. It just means that it all gets a chance to get out there and be considered. And hopefully we don't try and mash it all together and end up with bad decisions. But, you know, that... So it all gets expressed. It's all laid out there. It's not kept within. I think that's really an important point.

[42:43]

I brought some cow eyes in case anyone wants to look or take, you know, if you don't have. And we also have a couple of new brochures and some blind donkeys. I think we have some cookies, too. Yeah. I really feel sometimes that we get into this thing where women are congratulating themselves on how they're able to express their feelings. And I just wanted to add that we're the people now who are demanding to be let in to traditions that have formally excluded us. And we have to talk to each other. I think the reason we are talking to each other so much is because we have to know exactly how our demand is going to take form. So it's very difficult for women to do this individually. You never know when to speak out or let something go, or was I misled?

[43:44]

Or should I let that happen? And I think that's a lot of what we want to be getting together about. Maybe men don't have to do this. Yeah. When we're very clear, then they may want to, but it just might be that they'll have to do it. But, you know, we're doing it together right now in a real way, and that, you know, I mean, this group is very together in that way. But I think because the whole world has been in this group for so long, it's probably like something nature doesn't have to express enough. It's a lot of talk at the conference about feminine principle and masculine principle. Fran will summarize that for you. It was all over my head. I don't think we got very far with all that feminine principle and masculine principle stuff, to tell you the truth. But I think it was an attempt to kind of put some of these things into some way we could work with it. And it's real important in Tibetan tradition. It's part of their symbolism or something.

[44:45]

Yeah. I feel like in situations where it The situation isn't so restrictive. The division between men and women becomes less and less obvious. And you just feel people kind of taking different roles, showing different sides of their personality. I feel like in my relationship, the man I live with expresses his feelings much more easily than I do. And I'm a nurse, and I work with women during the day. And we all take different roles. And some are kind of on the feeling side and some are more on the thinking side. So it's kind of pitfall also to make any divisions and say this is masculine, this is feminine. So you have to be kind of careful. You know, one thing that Susan has thought about, Susan Murcott has thought a lot about, is how especially practice seems to bring out that side of you that you didn't have.

[45:46]

So that you know, whatever side, either whether you're a man or a woman, seems to come out more, you know. Let's try that. You want me to pass it out? You want me to pass it out? Lift your napkin. This is grain and this is peppermint.

[46:50]

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